Obedience to the Ten Commandments

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“Sin will always be sin. Disobedience to the Lord’s commandments will always deprive us of His blessings. The world changes constantly and dramatically, but God, His commandments, and promised blessings do not change. They are immutable and unchanging,” says Elder L. Tom Perry of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

As children of God, we have been given the wonderful gift of choice. The truest happiness and peace we can have comes by choosing to obey His laws, as Elder Perry teaches in his talk "Obedience to Law is Liberty," given April 2013 in general conference.

Those laws include never murdering, stealing, or lying. But what are His other commandments? The world has forgotten them. Have you?

1. “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3).

2. “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image” (Exodus 20:4).

3. “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain” (Exodus 20:7).

God reveals to His prophets that there are moral absolutes. Sin will always be sin. Disobedience to the Lord's commandments will always deprive us of His blessings. The world changes constantly and dramatically, but God, His commandments, and promised blessings do not change. They are immutable, unchanging.

Men and women receive their agency as a gift from God, but their liberty--in turn, their eternal happiness--comes from obedience to His law. One way to measure ourselves and compare us to previous generations is by the oldest standard known to man--the Ten Commandments. For much of the civilized world, particularly the Judeo-Christian world, the Ten Commandments have been the most acceptable and enduring delineation between good and evil.

In my judgment, four of the Ten Commandments are taken as seriously today as ever. As a culture, we disdain and condemn murder, stealing, and lying, and we still believe in the responsibility of children to their parents. But as a larger society, we routinely dismiss the other six commandments:

If worldly priorities are any indication, we certainly have "other gods" we put before the true God. We make idols of celebrities, of lifestyle, of wealth, and yes, sometimes even graven images or objects. We use the name of God in all kinds of profane ways, including our exclamations and our swearing.

We use the Sabbath day for our biggest games, our most serious recreation, our heaviest shopping, and virtually everything else but worship. We treat sexual relations outside marriage as a recreation, an entertainment. And coveting has become a far too common way of life.

A useful way to think about the commandments is they are loving counsel from an all-wise Heavenly Father. His goal is our eternal happiness, and His commandments are a roadmap He has given us to return to Him, which is the only way we will be eternally happy.